Errolson Hugh Discusses the NikeLab x Acronym Downtown AF1

Image: ROBERT GRUNENBERG

posted February 28, 2017

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From his work at Stone Island, to his role masterminding the re-launch of the Nike ACG label, to his ongoing experimentation under his own brand Acronym, Errolson Hugh has long been a one-man R&D unit for the sportswear industry. In a recent interview with SSENSE, conducted before the release of the NikeLab x Acronym Downtown AF1, Hugh describes the advantages of painting with the brush of a global corporate infrastructure: “Working with Nike means that you’re really working with pop culture. It’s not just a product or a collection. It’s so ingrained into so many people’s histories.”

This is particularly true of the new NikeLab x Acronym Downtown AF1, the contents of the shoeboxes surrounding Hugh in the picture above. In classic deconstructionist style, the sneaker slices into and reformulates an iconic design, a process described by Hugh as “intervention.” This is Duchampian tactics for a century of hyper-networked fetishization, a concept reflected in Nike Lab’s video for the release, “Fixation,” directed by Jeanne-Salomé Rochat and Carlijn Jacobs.